Blurring the Line between Civilian and Military: The Changing Nature of the Town-Base Relationship in Jacksonville, North Carolina
By
Crystal M. Johnson
Honors Thesis
The Curriculum of Peace, War, and Defense University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
(April 5, 2016)
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Johnson 2 Table of Contents
Acknowledgements………..3
Introduction………..5
Chapter One: Overview of USMC and Jacksonville, North Carolina………...16
Chapter Two: Dislocation in Jacksonville……….………28
Chapter Three: Camp Lejeune Water Contamination……….………..51
Chapter Four: Economic Dependency and the Gulf War………..………73
Conclusion……….95
Johnson 3 Acknowledgement
Undertaking a senior honors thesis is not a small endeavor; it encompasses a large amount of time and depends upon guidance being given by a large variety of people. I would like to take the time to extend my appreciation and gratitude for the people who have supported me throughout this project.
First and foremost my sincere thanks goes to my advisor, Professor Katherine Turk, without whom this endeavor would not have been possible. Professor Turk has guided me throughout this process and given me unwavering support and advice for all areas of my future. She helped me to find my writing voice and was always willing to give me edits and suggestions on how to improve my writing. Without her this thesis would not be a coherent piece of writing. I am so thankful for her support and it is my hope that this thesis will make her proud.
I am also grateful for the support I received from the Ronald E. McNair Scholars Program – specifically from Mr. Jonathan Earnest, Mr. Keven Chovanec, and Mr. Ian Murray. The three of these individuals helped me to begin my foray into research last summer and were invaluable to me from the time I began to formulate this narrative to its completion. I am thankful that I had their unflinching support to turn to when I began to have doubts about myself and my research.
Johnson 4 Johnson, my mom Anita Ashabranner, and my brother Robert Johnson. These three help form the core of who I am and I cannot imagine going through this process without them. I am also grateful for my stepdad Chris Maravelas, and my grandparents Larry and Peggy Bera, Daniel and Diane Waller, and Madalyn Johnson for supporting my passion.
Lastly, I would like to express my appreciation for the many other people that contributed to the success of this thesis. It is impossible to go through and name you all but I hope that you all know how grateful I am to you. Special thanks goes to: the members of the Marching Tar Heels Tenor Saxophone Section, who prevented me from becoming a hermit, the sisters of SAI, who loved and supported me through this time, and my suite mates who dealt with me on a regular basis.
Johnson 5 Introduction
As a military dependent who has only lived in communities with a large military presence, I was unprepared for the problems I would have adjusting to life in a
predominately civilian town like Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Coming to Chapel Hill and seeing people jogging on sidewalks, not designated running paths, and wearing headphones seemed completely alien to me but I soon came to realize that these things were normal in the civilian world. Life on military bases is guided by a strict set of rules that govern all aspect of life from your haircut to your wardrobe to how you act in public. These rules must be followed because living on base is a privilege, not a right, and a wrong move can see you and your family kicked out of base housing. I also came to realize that there is something about a military town that is also fundamentally different from a civilian town because of the large military presence in the community.
Johnson 6 Many of the military communities that I began to research, such as Jacksonville, were first brought into contact with the military during the late 1930s and early 1940s when large scale military construction occurred throughout the United States in the interest of self-defense. In the aftermath of the First World War, the United States government put forth a policy of isolationism and non-interventionism in regards to international conflicts. When World War II eventually broke out, President Franklin D. Roosevelt cited “formal neutrality” as the official stance of the United States in his 1937 Quarantine Speech.1 However, “formal neutrality” did not stop the United States from either supplying the Allies with war materials or providing for the “common defense” within the boundaries of the United States.2 Specifically, these decades saw the buildup of what President Franklin D. Roosevelt termed the “arsenal of democracy.”3 The
mobilization of the “arsenal” began slowly but picked up steam following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December of 1941.4
With the attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States government decided to
establish a larger permanent military, than had previously been had, for both times of war and times of peace.5 This new strategy forced the government to build military
installations by the hundreds, as mobilization efforts severely strained the existing military structure. In determining where such new bases should be built, government officials increasingly favored the American South on account of its location, landscape,
1 Franklin D. Roosevelt, "Quarantine Speech" (UVA Miller Center; October 5, 1937), http://millercenter.org/president/speeches/speech-3310.
2 Ibid.
3 "Franklin Delano Roosevelt – ‘The Arsenal of Democracy’" American Rhetoric, http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/fdrarsenalofdemocracy.html.
4 Ibid.
5 Peter L. Hay, Genevieve Anton, and Jeff Thomas, "The Politics of Base Closure",
Johnson 7 climate, and more. New construction included barracks, air fields, armories, training centers, bases, and various other types of military installations. More specifically, and more pertinently, the number of domestic military bases skyrocketed dramatically during this period. The landscape of military bases went from being scattered and “few and far between” to “peppering the country” as each military branch built dozens of bases around the country. 6 The boom in military construction brought many communities into direct and prolonged contact with the military for the first time in their history.
North Carolina, and particularly Eastern North Carolina, was one state that was greatly impacted by the base building that occurred during this period. In North
Carolina’s Wartime Miracle: Defending the Nation, John S. Duvall commented on how North Carolina became a leading contributor to the nation’s growing military efforts. North Carolina went from being the home of one permanent military installation in Fayetteville before World War I to the site of four massive permanent bases by the start of America’s involvement in World War II. This construction had a huge impact on the state as “military base construction became a major industry in the state during 1940 through 1943” and people and money flowed into the state to support the new defense industry.7
While all branches of the United States Armed Forces engaged in base building at this time, the United States Marine Corps (USMC) had several distinct reasons to build new bases which made North Carolina the ideal site for a new, permanent base. These
6 David S. Sorenson, Military Base Closure a Reference Handbook (Westport, Conn.: Praeger Security International, 2007), p. xv.
Johnson 8 motivations included a sharp increase in recruitment and a transition in mission that occurred during the 1930s. This adjusted mission, which emphasized amphibious warfare, required new advanced warfare bases in coastal cities to allow for training in amphibious landings. Eastern North Carolina, at that time, boasted relatively cheap and undeveloped land that the USMC could acquire and develop. Onslow County, a small county in southeastern North Carolina, was one location picked to fulfill this base building objective.
Camp Lejeune’s construction transformed Onslow County: every township in the county was touched by the large military presence as wealth and people flowed into the area. However, Jacksonville, the county seat of Onslow, experienced the most immediate and lasting change on account of its proximity with the base. Everything from the
makeup of the population to land ownership to the economy changed in Jacksonville because of the establishment of the Camp Lejeune. These changes, in conjunction with the reactions of the townspeople to them, are essential to understanding how Jacksonville transformed into a military town and the relationship that developed between town and base. Thus, while this thesis will acknowledge the larger county, its primary focus will be the interactions between Jacksonville and Camp Lejeune.
This thesis seeks to fill a gap in the existing historiography of military bases by examining the relationship between Camp Lejeune and Jacksonville. Existing narratives that examine the relationship between military installations and their surrounding
Johnson 9 specific aspects of the relationship, they downplay the complexity of such interactions.8 For instance, one study by Brandon Booth looked at how the presence of a military installation reshaped the role of women in the labor market of nearby communities.9 Todd Bendor’s study, on the other hand, examined how a large military presence created problems for the Eastern North Carolina, an area with a high quantity of military bases, in terms of local governments attempting to deal with the military-induced growth.10 Both of these studies and others like them focus on specific aspects of the town-base
relationship and fail to take a more holistic approach to these interactions.11
This lack of a broader comprehensive approach downplays the complexity of the relationship between town and base by highlighting specific aspects rather than taking into account all of the parts of the interaction. Downplaying this intricacy and ignoring the effect of military installations on broader American life tends to conceal some of the most important domestic effects of the military. Since the discontinuance of the draft, the implementation of an all-volunteer military, and a series of base realignments in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, military communities have become
increasingly isolated within the United States. Not only do service members enter these
8Various studies examine distinct aspects of a domestic base’s influence; for more on the studies relevant
to Camp Lejeune see Todd Bendor, "Assessing Local Government Capacity to Manage and Model
Military-Induced Growth in Eastern North Carolina." (Planning Practice & Research 26.5, 2011) and Booth "The Impact of Military Presence In Local Labor Markets on the Employment of Women." Gender & Society 14.2 (2000).
9 B. Booth, W. W. Falk, D. R. Segal, and M. W. Segal, "The Impact of Military Presence in Local Labor Markets On the Employment of Women." (Gender & Society 14.2, 2000), p.318-32.
10 Todd Bendor, "Assessing Local Government Capacity to Manage and Model Military-
Induced Growth in Eastern North Carolina." (Planning Practice & Research 26.5, 2011), p. 531-53. 11 See Todd Bendor, "Assessing Local Government Capacity to Manage and Model Military-Induced Growth in Eastern North Carolina." (Planning Practice & Research 26.5, 2011) and Booth
Johnson 10 communities because of nearby military installations but also many choose to retire in these communities with their families. That means that the effects of the military on daily life in American society has become increasingly isolated to the communities that are in close proximity with military installations. One cannot begin to understand America’s military’s effect on the broader public unless one first understands its pervasive influence on domestic bases and their surrounding communities.
One of the only narratives that does holistically address this relationship,
Homefront: A Military City and the American Twentieth Century by Catherine Lutz, has an overtly negative tone when discussing the military.12 Lutz raises important points about the blurring of lines between civilian and military and the unique problems that military communities face, which she argues can be applied to military towns across the country. However, the complexity of the relationship between Fort Bragg and
Fayetteville, North Carolina, the two entities discussed in the book, is compromised by its wholly negative perspective on the military. Using Fayetteville and Fort Bragg as a microcosm of the American military system, Lutz fails to acknowledge any positive impact on or attitude towards the military in the area.13 Her study thus cannot explain why some areas developed positive relationships with the military while Fayetteville did not. Rather than attempt to confront or correct that oversight in Fort Bragg’s history, this thesis will shed new light on the literature on military bases by shifting its lens to Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune and its neighboring community of Jacksonville, North
Carolina – a town with similar history to Fayetteville that has seen a marked decrease in
12 Catherine Lutz, Homefront: A Military City and the American Twentieth Century (Boston: Beacon, 2001).
Johnson 11 tension and an increase in interdependence over the course of its relationship with the base.14
There are other compelling reasons to examine the relationship between Jacksonville and Camp Lejeune. First, Camp Lejeune is one of the largest military installations not only in the state of North Carolina but on the East Coast. The camp’s size made it increasingly difficult for neighboring towns to steer clear of its influence, as more and more wealth and people were drawn to the area. Second, the intricate
relationship between town and base has generated significant records since the base was established in the early 1940s. Thus, I had a great deal of evidence to draw on while tracing the ebbs and flows of the town-base relationship. Third, this relationship is extremely nuanced and has changed from one of dramatic tension to reluctant apathy to general acceptance and trust through years of interdependence and close proximity. Thus, Jacksonville provides a nuanced and well-documented example of how town-base relations develop and how towns accommodate a large military presence.
Drawing from the Jacksonville Daily News and the Camp Lejeune Globe, census data, oral histories, and government reports, this thesis analyzes the history of the
interaction between Camp Lejeune and Jacksonville through the use of three case studies. Through these case studies, I examine specific events that have largely shaped the
relationship and which exemplify the changing attitudes and mentalities documented in the area.
This thesis is divided into four chapters – three of which correspond to the three case studies that will be investigated. Chapter One establishes crucial background by
Johnson 12 providing a thumbnail sketch of Jacksonville prior to the establishment of the base. This chapter not only provides context by outlining the nature of the town that the military would enter into but also provides a basis by which the changes caused by the base can be examined.
Chapter Two introduces the base and its large military community into the area described and outlined in Chapter One. This chapter explores the role of the base as an instrument of change in Jacksonville in addition to examining the first cause of animosity between town and base: the human displacement caused by the base’s construction. The ensuing contest for space and resources brought the town and base into direct conflict and generated tensions that did not begin to lessen until well after the end of World War II. The use of the displacement case study allows this chapter to analyze the changes and tensions resulting from military preparedness in small communities that were chosen to host large military installations.
Chapter Three builds upon the analysis of the town-base relationship in Chapter Two by examining the progression of attitudes towards the base. In order to do this, this chapter investigates the water contamination scandal that occurred at Camp Lejeune and how it created a dichotomy in the public perception of the base and the Marine Corps in the area. On one hand, the water contamination negatively affected the health of military personnel, dependents, and civilians who lived and worked on the base during the
Johnson 13 directly connected to it considered the water contamination to be a military problem and none of their concern despite sharing similar water systems with the base. While this dichotomy highlights the divide that existed between the military and civilian
communities in the area, it also shows how overt resentment and tension had deescalated in the decades following World War II.
Chapter Four continues the examination of the civilian-military divide and transforming attitudes by analyzing two events from the latter half of the twentieth
century: the development of a town legend and the Gulf War. The town legend, as told to me by residents of Jacksonville, is a story about the base using its economic power to leverage the town to capitulate to its will. Specifically, the story depicts the base as putting the town off-limits to military personnel and their dependents in order to force the town to revise its behavior towards the Marines. While there is no hard evidence that this story is based on fact, it conveys deep fear of Jacksonville’s economic dependence on the base which will be realized during the Gulf War. Before the Gulf War, however, the town and base were bonded together in shared mourning due to the 1983 Beirut
Bombing. The majority of the Marines killed in the bombing had been stationed at Camp Lejeune and resided in the Jacksonville community.15 The loss of 273 lives from the
small community caused a realization that the Marines were more than the ‘other’ that had invaded the town during the 1940s; they were friends and neighbors who mattered to the people of Jacksonville.16
15 The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica, "1983 Beirut Barracks Bombings." (Encyclopedia Britannica Online), http://www.britannica.com/event/1983-Beirut-barracks-bombings.
Johnson 14 The economic recession caused by the Gulf War furthered this realization by showing the economic importance of the military service members and their families. During the Gulf War the economy of the town began to slide into recession, as the deployment of thousands of service members and the exodus of their families from the community for the duration of the deployment, stemmed the flow of money into the area. In the aftermath of both the Beirut Bombing and the Gulf War, Jacksonville officials worked harder to show their appreciation for the presence of the military and build support services such as free child care or tax benefits that would cause military families to stay in the area through deployments. This dynamic, where the town-base relationship is slowly improving but is complicated by the town’s fear of the base’s economic
dominance, will be explored during this case study.
This thesis argues that while tension and mutual uneasiness characterize the town-base relationship, economic factors and more than fifty years of close proximity
Johnson 16 Chapter One
Introduction
The United States Marine Corps (USMC) began to influence the city of
Jacksonville, North Carolina in 1940. Identifying Onslow County as an ideal location for a military base, the Department of the Navy began to buy land in the area that would host what would later become Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune. Analyzing both the mindset of the USMC before its presence in Jacksonville and the nature of the town before the base is essential to examining the tension and division that grew between the military and civilian populations as a result of the establishment of the base. Further, investigating the history and nature of the area before Camp Lejeune is imperative to explain the
immensity of the changes the civilian population was forced to contend with over a relatively small time period.
This initial chapter presents the histories of the USMC and Jacksonville prior to their first contact. Analyzing them separately grounds the case studies that follow, revealing how Camp Lejeune fundamentally altered Jacksonville and Onslow County. This disruption generated tensions and even overt resentment that shaped the relationship between these communities in its early years.
Overview of USMC History
Johnson 17 the United States Marine Corps (USMC) in preparation for the Quasi War with France.17 After this point the USMC was never again formally disbanded, though it was
continuously threatened was dismantlement. This threat was a result of the fact that the USMC’s mission and structure going into World War I made them virtually
indistinguishable from the Army. 18 As J. Robert Moskin said in his book The U.S. Marine Corps Story, “if the Corps existed only to do what the Army could do (even though better perhaps), very soon the powers-that-be might be convinced that the Marine Corps was an unnecessary carbon copy.” The looming threat of dismantlement created an institutional crisis in the Marine Corps leading to Commandant John A. Lejeune’s reorganization of the Corps and the formulation of a new mission that allowed them to remain an independent military branch. 19
The expanded mission that the Marine Corps adopted was amphibious warfare which required coastal bases where the landings could be practiced. Amphibious warfare, a type of offensive military operation that utilizes naval ships to project ground and air power onto a hostile shore at a designated landing beach, had been dismissed by others as a “tactical nightmare, if not impossible” due to the failed landing at Gallipoli in 1915.20 The USMC, however, remained “enthusiastic about the possibility of amphibious
warfare” and began to scout for locations suitable for a new base. 21 It found a prime
17 Millet, p. 34
18 Elton E. Mackin, Suddenly We Didn’t Want to Die: Memoirs of a World War I Marine (Novato, CA: Presidio, 1993).
19 Williamson Murray, Military Innovation in the Interwar Period (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996) p. 71-72.
20Allan Reed Millett, Semper Fidelis: The History of the United States Marine Corps (New York, New York: Free Press, 1991), p. 321.
Johnson 18 location on the coast of North Carolina between two deep water ports in Onslow County, specifically the town of Jacksonville.
The USMC decided to build Marine Corps Barracks New River in Jacksonville for several reasons. One major influence was a report entitled The Undefended Coast prepared by George Gillette was released by the Army Corps of Engineers in late 1939.22 This report surveyed and mapped the coast of Virginia and the Carolinas and was at least partially responsible for the decision to look for a site in North Carolina to the
geographic, topographic, climate, and isolation information included in the report.23 Gillette was an Onslow County native who had a two-fold purpose for preparing the survey of the coast: first to point out “its vulnerability to attack by an enemy in wartime” and secondly “to provide the basis for developing the economy of the coastal area.”24
There is irony in Gillette’s involvement in calling the attention of the USMC to the area because he intended to retire on his family’s property in Onslow County but that property was confiscated to build the base.25 Secondly, in 1940 Major General Thomas Holcomb, then the Marine Corps Commandant, ordered two marines to conduct an aerial survey to find a new training center. The two men surveyed the Atlantic and Gulf coasts from “Norfolk, Virginia to Corpus Christi, Texas” but it was when they flew over the coastline of Onslow County that they saw an area ideal for “training, maneuvering large
formations, artillery firing, and the construction of a major facility.”26
22 "Interview with Billy Arthur; Editor of Onslow County News and Views." Interview by Base Public Affairs Officer (Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune Oral History Project, August 2000),
www.lejeune.marines.mil.
23 Alan D. Watson, Onslow County: A Brief History (Raleigh, NC: Division of Archives and History – North Carolina Dept. of Cultural Resources, 1995), p. 134.
24 Arthur Interview. 25 Ibid.
Johnson 19 A reconnaissance team was sent to the area following both the aerial survey and the publication of the Undefended Coast and confirmed that Jacksonville was an
appropriate location for the establishment of the base.27 Jacksonville was appropriate because it met most of the “technical site selection criteria established by the Corps” such as access to deep water ports, available landing beaches, cheap and relatively
unpopulated land, and at least 10 square miles free from aircraft, industry, and roads.28 The only exception was that the nearby area did not have recreational areas and power sources.29 Both the report and the aerial survey led Congress to appropriate funds to purchase approximately 100,000 acres in Jacksonville, North Carolina on which the Marine Corps would build Marine Barracks New River – later named Camp Lejeune in honor of Lt. General John A. Lejeune and his contribution towards the mission of amphibious warfare.30
Overview of Jacksonville and Onslow County
Jacksonville wasn’t too much of nothing.
Clifton Tallman when asked about Jacksonville before the building of Camp Lejeune31
Camp Lejeune would be built in Onslow County, a corner of North Carolina that entered the twentieth century as a poor and fundamentally agrarian county. The area
http://www.lejeune.marines.mil/OfficesStaff/EnvironmentalMgmt/CulturalResources/HistoryLive/Historyo fCampLejeune.aspx.
27 Arthur Interview
28 Louis Berger Group, Inc., com., Semper Fidelis: A Brief History of Onslow County, North Carolina, and
Marine Corps Base, Camp Lejeune (United States: United States Marine Corps, 2002), p. 28. 29 Ibid.
30 Watson, p.134.
Johnson 20 acknowledged their lack of notoriety outside of the immediate area with a tagline for the county newspaper that read: “The Only Newspaper in the World that Gives A Whoop about Onslow County.”32 It was not until the onset of World War II that the prominence
of the area started to rise due to the immediate and profound changes brought by the building of a Marine Corps Base.33 However, prior to the 1940s and the building of Camp Lejeune, both Jacksonville and Onslow County sat as relatively unimportant points on the national landscape.
The history of Jacksonville arguably began when the town of Wantland’s Ferry was settled following the Tuscarora Wars in the eighteenth century.34 In 1752 Johnston, then the county seat of Onslow, was destroyed in a hurricane and Wantland’s Ferry was selected as the new county seat.35 Then, in 1842, Wantland’s Ferry was incorporated and renamed Jacksonville in honor of former President Andrew Jackson.36 Throughout the
remainder of the nineteenth century, citizens of Jacksonville remained burdened by the “agricultural toil and poverty” which had marked the area since it was settled.37
As the twentieth century dawned, the local government had a low tax base to draw on when it looked to build infrastructure. The low tax base of the area was a result of both the small population and its impoverished nature. In 1900, the population of Jacksonville was 309 – a that number grew to only 873 by 1940.38 That is an increase of 564 people over a forty year period meaning that the area grew by approximately 14.1
32The Onslow County News and Views (Jacksonville, NC), January 12, 1945. 33 Watson, p. 105.
34 Ibid., p. 1-5
35 Joseph Parsons Brown, The Commonwealth of Onslow; a History (New Bern, NC: O.G. Dunn, 1960), p. 17.
36 Ibid.
Johnson 21 people every year.39 The 1940 population was almost evenly split in terms of gender with about 50.76% being male and about 49.24% being female.40 The majority of this
population, about 50.33%, was age twenty-one or older.41 The agricultural nature of the economy contributed to 36.4% of the population being below the age of fourteen as couples needed to have larger families in order to work the land.42 The majority of the population was white with blacks making up only about 27.1% of the population due to an exodus that occurred following the end of the Civil War.43
Throughout the period, the majority of the people in the population “were farmers struggling to cover their own expenses.”44 These farmers had little to no taxable assets
that the local government could capitalize on to build infrastructure. This resulted in county residents using natural waterways as “major arteries of transportation” due to both the poor quality of the road networks in the area and the small number of automobiles in the area due to overwhelming poverty.45 Dr. Lafayette Parker, an African-American man born and raised in Onslow County who grew to become a prominent educator in the area, recalled that after “the PTA raised money for a bus” the students spent “more time pushing it than…riding it” because of the poor conditions of the dirt roads.46
39 This number is calculated as if population growth was equal over the years. However census reports show that Jacksonville’s population spiked in 1910 by about 63% before lowering to below 20% growth for the three decades to follow. Therefore this number is an estimation of the total growth in the period. 40 All of this information was taken from the Onslow County census record. This was done because the Jacksonville Township included areas of the county that were not actually part of the town but were closest to this geographic entity making the data less reflective on the town’s composition than could have been true. For more information see: United States. Bureau of the Census.|. 16th Census of the United States, 1940. Population. Second Series, Characteristics of the Population. North Carolina. Washington, D.C.: For sale by the Supt. of Docs., U.S. G.P.O., 1941.
41 Ibid. 42 Ibid. 43 Ibid.
44 "Census of Population and Housing." US Census. Accessed December 3, 2015. http://www.census.gov/prod/www/decennial.html.
45 Watson, p. 109.
Johnson 22 While the local government was financially unable to build quality infrastructure, the state government was simply uninterested in developing this region. The state committed only a small quantity of resources to infrastructure in the area as is evident by how the roads throughout the county were all dirt and had only minor alterations since the Civil War.47 The only exception to that were two hard surfaced roads: U.S. Route 17, which was constructed in 1924, and State Route 24 which was constructed in 1934. The disinterest in developing the region was also a result of the poverty pervasive in the area as the state did not want to spend money on a poor county when they could focus on wealthier areas such as New Bern or Wilmington.48 The condition of the roads in the area would not improve until the 1940s when the Marine Corps began to build infrastructure in order to facilitate the construction of the base. This included paving roads in the area as well as building a railroad to link into the one that connected Jacksonville with Wilmington and New Bern.49
The low tax base and poverty in the area also complicated the fiscal difficulties the county and country struggled with in the aftermath of World War I and the Great Depression. Several residents of long-time residents of the area, such as Dr. Parker, felt that the collapse of farm prices after World War I hurt the local economy more than the Great Depression. Dr. Parker particularly felt that the impact of the Great Depression was not felt in the area because poverty was already so pervasive and people were
Oral History Program Collection #4007, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
47Semper Fidelis: A Brief History, p. 28.
48 Interview with Percy Brown by Karen Kruse Thomas, 18 May 1995 (K-0032), in the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Johnson 23 already struggling to survive. 50 Others residents felt that World War II and the
establishment of the base was harder on the community. One such resident was Percy Brown, a man born and raised Richlands, a township located northeast of Jacksonville. Brown felt that World War II was more difficult for the people of the area because it forced them to deal with outsiders who they viewed as invaders, but he also
acknowledged that the area was poorer and less developed than places such as New Bern, North Carolina at the beginning of the twentieth century.51 Regardless of which was
actually harder, it is clear that the citizens of Jacksonville were living hand to mouth and were struggling to make a living off of their farms due to the financial situation of the area prior to 1941.
Agriculture, a way of life for the people of Onslow County, suffered due to “the trying years of the twenties and the depression of the thirties,” causing the people in the area to struggle to survive. 52 Dr. Watson points out in Onslow County: A Brief History, the number of farms in the area held steady between the end of World War I and the start of World War II but the “average size dropped to seventy-one acres and mortgages hung over a quarter of the properties.”53 By 1940, 41% of the farms in Onslow County were
operated through tenancy and only lumber companies held large tracts of land in the community.54 Further, bartering became common due to the fact that homegrown food could earn a person more than a dollar would at that time. 55 This was a common story
50 Parker Interview. 51 Brown Interview. 52 Watson, p. 113. 53 Ibid.
Johnson 24 across the United States following World War I as farm prices collapsed after the
recovery of the European market.
In addition to farming, the people of Jacksonville relied on seafood, naval stores, and lumbering as an integral facet of the economy. Onslow ranked “ninth among the coastal counties in the value of fish caught between 1936 and 1940.”56 Fishermen
utilized the resources of both the nearby Atlantic Ocean and the New River to make their living. Fishing would not become commercial until the mid-twentieth century, which meant that prior to that point it was only used for subsistence in the area. Naval stores, on the other hand, which are goods such as lumber used in the building and maintenance of ships, was both a prominent commercial industry and a prominent source of income for the area and had been since Onslow County was settled by the British.57 However, the era of naval stores ended by World War I because the longleaf pine forests that once dominated the area were depleted due to over-logging.58 Lumbering operations
cushioned the decline of naval stores by targeting second-growth loblolly pines.59 Lumber comprised “approximately one-third of the manufactories in Onslow, though most were relatively small operations” and was considered an important facet, if not the most important facet, of manufacturing in the county. 60 Despite the success of
lumbering operations, the Jacksonville and Onslow County economies – which were closely tied together so much as to be the same entity – suffered in the beginning of the twentieth century.
56 Watson, p. 115.
57Semper Fidelis: A Brief History, p. 23. 58 Watson, p. 116.
Johnson 25 While lacking wealth, the population in Jacksonville seems to have been
relatively content. Elsie Fonville, a woman born and raised in Onslow County whose family was personally affected by the construction of the base, believed that “[the citizens of Jacksonville] may have not been as well off before the base, but they were happier.”61
What Fonville meant by this was that families worked land that had been in their families for generations and had a certain way of doing things, certain traditions that they abided by and, while they may not have had a lot, they had enough to survive. After the building of the base many families in Jacksonville, specifically in the New River area, lost their homes, their land, and their livelihoods. The dislocation of these people and what happened to them after they were forced off of their land will be discussed in the next chapter.
The perception of the area’s contentment is completely subjective, however, and it is important to note that all of the people commenting on this subject were residents looking back on how life was prior to the base after the fact. This skews the perception of how the town was and how people viewed their lives in the early twentieth century. Indeed, many of the people looking back on how life was in Jacksonville prior to the base fail to take into account the quality of life of the marginalized people in the area: namely African Americans in an era of segregation and Jim Crow Laws.
Race relations in Jacksonville were dependent on where in the county a resident lived. For instance, Dr. Parker described Jacksonville as just “okay” for a segregated community and felt that African Americans living in rural areas, such as himself, were
Johnson 26 treated better than their urban counterparts. Rural African Americans were treated better because farmers needed to cooperate with one another regardless of skin color during harvesting and planting season. Elsie Fonville, a white woman, acknowledged that race relations were worse in towns than rural areas as she described race relations in
Swansboro, a township in Onslow County. Fonville said, “According to local tradition, blacks weren’t supposed to be on the streets after dark.” She also described a sign on the edge of the town which read: “N****r, don’t let the sun go down on you.” However, Fonville also emphasized how not all whites in Onslow County had this type of racial attitude when she told a story about how she encouraged her son to have black
playmates.62 Regardless of the differences in racial attitudes in the county, racial friction existed simply by nature of living in a segregated society because African Americans lacked the full rights of citizenship that their white counterparts enjoyed and would not gain those rights until the 1960s. This isn’t to say that the satisfaction level of African Americans in Jacksonville was heightened by the building of Camp Lejeune or that African Americans were better off because of the base – in fact many African Americans lost their homes because of the base’s construction – but is simply intended to point out that contentedness of the area prior to the base is open to debate and is purely subjective.
Regardless of how satisfied with life Jacksonville residents were in the early decades of the twentieth century, it is clear that the area was small, poor, and unimportant to those not living in Onslow County. That would change when the looming threat of war in Europe sparked an interest in defense spending and building in the United States during the late 1930s and early 1940s. The Jacksonville area would be greatly changed
Johnson 27 by this when the United States Marine Corps chose it as the site of a new amphibious training base in 1940. That decision fundamentally transformed the area and, as long-time Jacksonville resident K.B. Hurst stated, changed Jacksonville “from a sleepy, rural, eastern North Carolina town to a hurry-up, thriving, and bustling, military town.”63
Johnson 28 Chapter Two
Introduction
In 1940 the Department of the Navy purchased an 110,000 acre tract of land in Onslow County. The following year Congress authorized over fourteen million dollars for the construction of a military base in Jacksonville, North Carolina.64 The decision to build a large installation in this small community put the citizens of the area and the United States Marine Corps in direct and sustained contact for the first time in the history of the town. Tensions quickly rose between civilians and Marines due to both the
dramatic changes caused by the base and the manner in which each side viewed and treated one another. That conflict and tension will be the focus of this chapter with particular emphasis placed on the dislocation of families caused by the building of Camp Lejeune.
In this chapter, I explore the relationship between Jacksonville and Camp Lejeune in terms of both the changes brought to the area and how the two communities reacted to one another. Not only did the building of Camp Lejeune fundamentally change
Jacksonville but also that the way the situation was handled caused immense tensions and an ‘us vs. them’ mentality to develop in the area. This defined the relationship between town and base for the first several decades of contact and created a division between the military and civilian communities that would not be overcome for more than fifty years.
Johnson 29 Displacement
The displacement of a large portion of the county populace came as a surprise to many in the area due to the reporting of misinformation in the local newspaper. The Onslow County Record published one of the first articles about a rumored military installation that was to be built along the New River on December 12, 1940.65 This article, drawing on information from the Washington News Reports, contained inaccurate information as it told Onslow County residents that the Department of the Navy was considering an 11,000 acre tract of land.66 Later residents found that instead of
purchasing 11,000 acres, which amounts to about 1.89% of the land area of the county, the Department of the Navy actually intended to buy 110,000 acres of land. The 110,000 acre tract of land amounted to about 18.96 (or almost one-fifth) of the land area of the county.
Though the report did not contain accurate information in terms of how much land would be acquired by the government, it did accurately report the intentions of the United States Marine Corps to find “an area where development of a full-fledged Marine base can be launched.”67 At the time of this newspaper article there was no confirmation on when the decision would be made, what would happen to the residents living on the tract of land the Navy intended to buy, or how many people would be stationed at the proposed base.
With the lack of confirmed details, rumors about the base ran rampant throughout the community. One man who was born and raised in Onslow County and later displaced
65 "Onslow May Get Another Military Camp Says Washington News Reports." The Onslow County Record (Jacksonville, NC; December 12, 1940).
Johnson 30 by the base, K.B Hurst, recalled that “people speculated on the details” after the base was publically announced.68 Another permanent resident, Elsie Fonville who was also
displaced along with her family, recalled that she did not learn about the base until she heard it through word of mouth.69 The uncertainty regarding the details of the land acquisition made it difficult for Onslow County and Jacksonville residents to make contingency plans because no one knew what exact tract of land the Navy intended to buy.
Further, due to the fact that residents believed that the government was going to buy a smaller tract of land than they actually intended to buy, many residents did not realize that their land was in danger of being acquired by the Navy. Fonville noted that the rumors of the base were not confirmed by any town officials until surveyors were spotted in the New River area.70 Melanie Hart Sheldon, a member of the Former Land
Owners of Camp Lejeune organization, stated that her grandparents did not know that they would be displaced until they received a letter in the mail.71
The letters sent to families living in the New River area, such as the one Hart’s grandparents received, informed them that the Department of the Navy was prepared to either condemn or use imminent domain in order to acquire their land.72 The letters
explained that the government “found it necessary…to acquire immediate title and possession of these lands” through eminent domain and gave a deadline by which the residents were expected to be off of their property.73 The use of eminent domain and the
68 Hurst Interview. 69 Fonville Interview. 70 Ibid.
71 Sheldon Interview.
72 "Records." Former Landowners of Camp Lejeune. Accessed December 4, 2015. http://marinebasehomes.smugmug.com/.
Johnson 31 short time span given to residents complicated an already difficult issue as individuals struggled with finding a new home in the time span allotted to them.
The over 2,400 people displaced in 1941 to make room for Camp Lejeune were conflicted by the removal though emotions varied amongst the residents. The majority of those people lived on land that had been in their families for generations and many felt a deep emotional attachment to the land. Being forced to vacate that land and knowing that buildings and furniture left behind, many built by ancestors, would be either destroyed or used as target practice by the Marines.74 The immense emotional upheaval that the county residents were put through created turmoil in the area. Some people resented the government and the military for uprooting their lives, taking their families legacies from them, and the general heavy-handedness utilized in order to get the land in the first place.75 Others understood that the base was necessary for training and accepted that
there it was going to be built no matter what the townspeople personally thought.76 Then there were others who felt both of these emotions and struggled to find middle ground in the immediate aftermath of the displacement.77
This emotional turmoil was exacerbated when, in addition uprooting families when “they thought that they had put down [roots] for life,” family cemeteries were moved off of the land.78 It was very difficult for older residents to have their dead relatives disturbed and moved off of their land – breaking yet another connection with their family’s legacy.79 The government laid aside land for a white cemetery and a
74Semper Fidelis: A Brief History, p. 32. 75 Fonville Interview.
76 Hart Interview.
77 Cole Smith. "Interview with Cole Smith." (E-mail interview by author; February 15, 2016). 78 Fonville Interview.
Johnson 32 “colored cemetery” so that any burials on base property could be relocated.80 Many
displaced persons were bitter because of what they were forced to go through and felt intense anger towards the base. Base officials tried to make the process as smooth as possible but it was still very traumatic for the residents. Later on, after the United States officially entered World War II, it would be hard for residents to maintain that anger when they learned about atrocities being committed in Europe.
Margaret Stroud, the widow of a man whose family lost their farm to the USMC, recalled that her husband and his family talked about how it was hard to be mad at the Marines when you knew that they were helping to stop the Holocaust.81 United States troops had stumbled onto concentration camps by accident during the war and it was not until after the war that the American public began to realize the extent of the genocide that had occurred in Europe. Yet, once Jacksonville residents did learn about the
Holocaust, many began to feel that they lost the right to be angry with the USMC because the military held the “moral high ground” which worsened resentment towards the
military in the area. However, it also worked to decrease the amount of direct anger pointed at individual Marines. Residents like Margaret Stroud’s husband came to recognize that the individual Marines had been drafted and had not asked for the base to be built in the area and for it to disrupt the lives of Onslow County residents. Despite this shift in perception, resentment towards the base and military structure as a whole
remained due to the fact that displaced individuals and their families were given a small window of time in which they needed to vacate their properties.
80Semper Fidelis: A Brief Overview, p. 32.
Johnson 33 It is unclear exactly how long on average people had to get themselves and all of their things off of their land. The uncertainty stems from lack of records existing to present day. From surviving records of the letters land owners received from the federal government, it appears that land owners needed to leave their land as soon as they
received notice that the government was taking it – even before they officially signed the deal that the government was offering them. Most residents accepted the deals offered to them because those that tried to resist were forcibly removed from their land. K.B. Hurst recalled that one rebellious man was carried off his property while he was still sitting in his chair.82 Other residents tried to negotiate with the government to get a more
acceptable price for their land by getting it reappraised. The results of reappraisal are varied with some families receiving the adjusted price for the land and others receiving the amount offered the first time.83 It is unclear what caused some families’ reappraisal
to be taken into account and others not but it is likely dependent on whether the family had the means and determination to fight the government over land prices.84
The records from the Pitt family, taken from the Former Landowners of Camp Lejeune website, depict a basic timeline for displacement. The Pitts received notice that their land was granted to the government on June 20, 1941 and they were expected to vacate their property no later than June 30. The family did not sign a document agreeing to the figure offered for the land until July 1941, nor did they receive the payment for their property in its entirety until May of the following year.85 While the Pitt family
82 Hurst Interview.
83 "Records", Former Landowners of Camp Lejeune, https://marinebasehomes.smugmug.com/Records. 84 Ibid.
Johnson 34 allows one to see generally how short the displacement timeframe was, it ultimately depended on what section a person’s land was located in.
The government developed the land it acquired in sections (known as Area A-N) with Area A, Area B, and Area C being the first sections to be planned and worked on before proceeding down the line. Individuals and families living in a section that was not scheduled for immediate construction may have been able to stay on their land slightly longer than persons living in a section such as Area A or Area B. However, the extra time was not beneficial unless the residents possessed knowledge that their land was in danger of being confiscated by the government. If the person knew their land would be taken, then they had at least an extra week and at most a month or two to react before receiving the official notice letter. If they did not know then they were in the same situation as other residents who had at most five to seven days after receiving the notice to vacate their notice. The short timeframe caused problems for the displaced residents that were further exacerbated by a severe housing shortage in the area.
The influx of individuals into the community to build the base caused a housing shortage that affected the residents of Onslow County.86 The housing shortage caused displaced residents to stay in any building that they could find such as “tobacco barns, stores, and outbuildings.”87 The combination of the housing shortage and the short
timeframe also led to “some people storing their belongings in the woods” because either they did not have the time to find another place to put their possessions or there was no
86 Interview with Dick Tallman by Karen Kruse Thomas, 19 May 1995 (K-0051), in the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Johnson 35 place available in the community.88 On average it took between 2-5 years for the
displaced persons to relocate and many individuals chose to leave the area as a result of these compensation issues.89 It took people so long to relocate because the influx of people into the area pushed the market value of land and homes up at the same time that the displacement occurred. Even if individuals got fair value for their land, which many felt that they did not, most people did not have enough money to afford houses that were similar to what they lost.90 It is estimated that between ten and twenty percent of the
dispossessed persons “were lost to the county permanently” due to hardships posed by both the timeframe and housing shortage.91
Marines were also affected by the housing shortage. Most of the 6,000 Marines that populated Camp Lejeune by the end of 1941 lived in a “10,000 man tent camp” while permanent buildings and housing units were being constructed.92 The base also
built two trailer parks to house soldiers that were filled with “small, windowless trailers.”93 There were no rental properties in the Jacksonville area prior to the
construction of the base because it was not a pressing need in the community. The first federally financed military housing was not constructed until 1941 but Midway Park (as the housing area would later be named) “was made available to military personnel and civilians hired to work at the new base. By the end of the war, 1,164 units were available at Midway Park and the town also worked on developing housing. The number of
dwellings in Jacksonville had increased by 264 percent by 1946.94 Despite the
88 Dick Tallman Interview. 89 Watson, p. 135.
90 Arthur Interview. 91 Brown, p. 189.
92Semper Fidelis: A Brief History, p. 31.
Johnson 36 construction of additional housing overcrowding continued to be an issue. The
Jacksonville Record reported in 1944 that planned developments such as Bayshore Estate, which was planned for 225 units, “will not solve the housing problem confronting those who come here to make their home.”95
In addition to the timeframe and housing shortage causing problems for residents in the area, compensation issues complicated life for all dispossessed persons but
especially the disposed persons who did not own land. Surveyors looked at all the properties located within the boundaries of the tract that the government bought and assigned a monetary value to the land. Based on surviving records provided to the Former Land Owners of Camp Lejeune by Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, the
average price per acre was $12.00.96 Many landowners such as Elsie Fonville’s sister felt that the price offered for their land was unfair. According to Fonville, her sister tried to protest the price offered for her land and, in response, “the government forced [her] to take the price offered and forbade them to take anything off of their land.”97 Other residents were dissatisfied with the appraisal of their land and appealed the price to the Federal Court but only an average increase of about 12% was allowed and not every resident won their appeal.98 Rather, many residents who attempted to appeal the
government’s offer ended up losing money.99 There was also an average time gap of
“two years…between the time they were evicted and the receipt of compensation for their
95 "Contractor At Work On New Housing Project." (The Jacksonville Record, January 14, 1944). Note how the area newspaper changed names from The Onslow County Record to The Jacksonville Record within four years of the establishment of Camp Lejeune. This relatively minor change speaks to how Jacksonville was the township primarily impacted by the base due to its proximity with it.
96 Brown, p. 189. 97 Fonville Interview. 98 Brown, p. 188.
99Melanie Hart Sheldon. "Interview with Melanie Sheldon" (E-mail interview by author, February 15,
Johnson 37 property.”100 However, compensation was only offered to the disposed persons who owned the land that the government was interested in buying. This meant that tenant farmers and sharecroppers were left destitute as well as homeless due to the fact that they did not personally own the land that they lived and worked on.
One group of residents able to solve their homelessness crisis were the African Americans sharecroppers. The approximately one hundred African American families who lost their land purchased land along the northern boundary of the base from Mr. William Kellum.101 On that land the African Americans built a shanty town on that swampland known as Kellumtown. The families selected William Chadwick as their spokesman and Chadwick worked with the office of the Negro Farm Agent in New Bern to drain the swamp at a cost of about $840.00.102 Once the land was drained, it was “divided into plots from one to seventeen acres according to the needs of each” in addition to land being set aside for a school and a church.103 Kellumtown sat as an example of perseverance in an area where many dispossessed people, especially African Americans, faced extremely unfavorable odds in terms of relocation.
The establishment of Camp Lejeune caused misery in Onslow County as some residents were forced to yield their property to the government in order to make room for the base. Lack of communication, housing shortages, and compensation issues plagued the entire community, as the area was fundamentally reshaped by the base. This
100 Watson, p. 135.
101Brown, p. 189.
Johnson 38 transformation as well as the displacement contributed to the “bitter memories of some” and the “ongoing friction” between the military and civilian communities.104
Changes and Tensions
The construction of Camp Lejeune caused immense changes over a relatively short period. Everything from the economy to the population changed and very few things remained as they were before the base. Understanding the changes that Camp Lejeune caused is necessary so that one can visualize the situation the residents of Jacksonville faced, contextualize their reactions to the base, and see how it shaped the dynamics between the civilians and the Marines.
One of the largest changes brought on by the base was the fact that the nature of the economy of Jacksonville shifted to accommodate the base. Prior to 1941, the
economy was largely agriculturally based and the majority of citizens in Jacksonville and the larger county either farmed, tenant farmed, or sharecropped in order to survive. After 1941 the economy shifted to be more service-oriented towards the base. Restaurants, strip clubs, bars, tattoo parlors, pawn shops and other types of industry that did not exist in Jacksonville prior to the base began to line the streets. By 1954 retail was a 35 million dollar industry in Jacksonville while agriculture was a 10 million dollar industry.105 The economy shifted towards service due to the amount of money flooding the area and the military became the top employer in both Jacksonville and Onslow County.106
Johnson 39 In addition to bringing Onslow County out of an economic slump, the
construction of the base caused the population in the area to increase dramatically. Jacksonville experienced a 353.6% increase in population between 1940 and 1950 and a 240.7% increase between 1950 and 1960 as the population rose from 873 to 3,960 to 13,491.107 The population spike in the area also encompassed the county which saw a population of 15,289 rise to 42,157 in 1950 and then rise to a staggering 82,706 by 1960.108 This was a 134.4% increase and 96.7% increase respectively for the county.
The population boom changed the composition of the town as a whole. For instance, whereas the county had had an almost even sex ratio in 1930, women made up only about 40% of the population by 1960.109 This is due to the large amount of single men brought into the area because of the military base. Further, the black population in the county dropped from 27.1% in 1930 to approximately 12.7% in 1960.110 This shift may been
caused by the displacement as many displaced persons eventually left the area after the base was complete to find work in other counties – though a small portion of African Americans did stay to create Kellumtown – and other economic factors relating to the population boom such as the economic shift that occurred and rising tensions in the area.111 Regardless of why more than 10% of African Americans left the area by 1960, it
is clear that the establishment of the base and the subsequent population boom changed the nature of the both the town and the county which create tension in the area.
107 "Census of Population and Housing." 108 Ibid.
109Brunsman, Howard G. U.S. Census of Population, 1960. Detailed Characteristics. North Carolina. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Dept. of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, 1962.
Johnson 40 The tension and conflict created by the population boom occurred mainly between long-time residents of the area and the newcomers – especially between civilians and Marines. As Elsie Fonville said in her interview, Jacksonville "started to grow [because of the base] and it never stopped growing, really."112 The county as a whole may have been better equipped to handle this population influx than Jacksonville itself which struggled to accommodate the number of people residing in the area.
Despite the challenge Jacksonville faced, the quality of life did get better because of the base. The base not only helped to create infrastructure in the area but also spread basic services across Jacksonville. For instance, 13.3% of homes had electricity prior to 1940. 113 However, once the base was built, industry and wealth flooded into the area and by 1958 approximately 97% of homes in the area had electricity.114 Similarly only 173 homes had phones by 1934 but that number rose to 5123 by 1958.115 Though economic
growth occurred after the establishment of the base, the presence of the Marine Corps helped to improve the quality of life in Jacksonville.
Yet, not all of the individuals who lived in the area saw the oncoming of the base as an economic blessing. Some people, such as Herman Alberti, resented the idea that the base became the lifeblood of the county. 116 Others such as Dr. Parker thought that
there would be no Jacksonville without Camp Lejeune.117 The difference of opinion not only depended on how the residents viewed the town prior to Camp Lejeune but also on
112 Fonville Interview. 113 Watson, p. 123. 114 Brown, p. 203-205. 115 Brown, p. 203-205.
116 Interview with Herman Alberti by Karen Kruse Thomas, 8 June 8 1995 (K-26), in the
Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Johnson 41 whether the building of the base changed the quality of their life in a positive or negative manner. Many residents, especially those displaced by the base, were resentful of the changes in Jacksonville, resentful of the ongoing military presence in the area – as many thought that the base would be temporary – resentful of the economic dependency, and resentful that Jacksonville “appeared to be catering to the soldiers more than farmers” which created tension in the town.118 Other residents, especially those who benefitted economically from the base, lauded the base and the changes that it brought to the area.
Sidney Popkin is one man who benefitted from the presence of the military. Popkin was not born and raised in Onslow County but came to the area with his family shortly before the start of World War II.119 From Popkin’s recollection, the relationship between civilians and service members was not as bad as others made it seem. He said that people got along “wonderfully, better even than now [1994]. People would invite service people into their homes for meals.”120 Popkin and his friend Luther Midgett, who was born in the county, felt that people sympathized with the soldiers because “they knew they had been drafted.”121 Yet Popkin’s opinion was informed by the benefits he
received economically from the base in addition to his lack of connection to the area prior to the establishment of the base.122 Residents who were born and raised in the county
were not as quick to capitalize on the economic benefit the base could provide which caused resentment towards the non-native civilians amongst the locals.
118 Taylor Interview.
119 Interview with Sidney Popkin by Karen Kruse Thomas, June 8, 1995 (K-45), in the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
120 Popkin Interview. 121 Ibid.
Johnson 42 These changes in the civilian community created negative feelings for the
‘outsiders’ who came into the community and gained the power and wealth that had once been a handful of families in the area.123 Percy Brown, a lifelong resident of Onslow County who was drafted into the army during the war, remembered that “locals resented that most public officials are transplants, who have moved to the area after the base was built.124 The locals felt threatened by the newcomers as many “came in as qualified voters, property owners that they could just out vote” the local residents.125 The flood of
people that accompanied the construction of the base “made a killing” business wise whereas some of the locals “were too conservation…too afraid to take a chance.”126
Thus the flood of people into the community contributed to the tension in the area as they took money and power away from the locals.
The newcomers also had a different perspective on the transformations that took place in Jacksonville than the locals. For example one local, K.B. Hurst, disliked how the morals of the town degraded to accommodate the base.127 He recalled that “a whole lot of activity of the raw type” occurred and that “recreation for the soldiers were beer joints and topless waitresses…they drank more beer than they did water.”128 These social
changes were especially resented in a town that had been doing things the same way with the same set of morals for generations.129 Newcomers like Sidney Popkin thought that none of the shifts in the local area were as horrible as the locals liked to exaggerate. Popkin said that Court Street, considered the hub for unsavory activities, wasn’t as bad as
123 Stroud Interview. 124 Brown Interview. 125 Arthur Interview. 126 Ibid.
127 Hurst Interview 128 Ibid.
